SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHER STRESS

A teacher is a superstar in the entire system of education in Pakistan. Almost all cultures of the civilized world have considered their teachers in a very high esteem. Times have changed and the societies and cultures have drastically diversified, but the tasks of a teacher are primarily the same, which is the transfer of knowledge to the next generation. With change in cultural norms and traditions in the societies there has been a drastic change in the expectations from a teacher. Some of these changes have limited the measures which a teacher in the past could exercise in disciplining a student and some have put additional burden on teachers in respect their preparation of lessons and adopting and maintaining their teaching styles. This is because most of the school systems prefer to maintain uniformity in all of their branches. Teaching has now become a very demanding occupation with a lot of stresses for a teacher especially the Secondary school teachers, who has a lot of deadlines to meet and a lot of responsibilities to shoulder besides teaching a child what are in a text book. Primarily the role and responsibility of a teacher is multitasked in the present day school system. This was altogether different just a few years ago. With the change in the type of teaching culture and added managerial responsibilities for teachers include planning and executing instructional lessons, assessing students based on specific objectives derived from a set curriculum, and communicating with parents at the both public and private sector. Teaching has been identified as one of the most stressful professions today. The reasons for that are quite similar to other stressful occupations in Pakistan. Different reasons that cause distress to teachers are stress, anxiety and depression, conflict with managers or colleagues, pressure of workload and excessive changes, loss of confidence and performance anxiety, relationship marital and family problems. Stress is considered as an involuntary response to a dangerous situation. When we face a situation which our brain is incapable of handling, then it leads to different diseases like high blood pressure, rapid heartbeat, reduced blood supply to the skin, decrease in immune systems functions etc. According to a research the major causes of teacher stress are: excessive working hours, excessive workload, rising class sizes, changes in curriculum & courses, changes to assessment & testing requirements, poor management, pupil misbehaviour, lack of job security due to joblessness and fixed term contracts. According to a survey the types of stress of the public and private school teachers at secondary level, are quite different. In private sector the teachers are more stressed as compared to public sector. The most common stress issues in public and private sector are; Job insecurity, in private sector, is a biggest stress for the teachers. The principles of the secondary schools are completely independent to hire and fire the teachers irrespective of the merit but the situation is quite opposite in public sector. Less salary and rewards, in private sector, there is no criteria or settled procedure because lot of female teachers are available in the market at less salary rates. No set curriculum, private sector of schools there is variation in curriculum for the schools but public sector has a predefined curriculum. Testing criteria is another issue in public sector. Too much testing and checking work causes stress and anxiety for teachers who had domestic problems also. Public sector teachers are mentally relaxed because of predefined test system.

ASSIGNMENT

SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS STRESS

SUBMITTED TO: MISS TALAT SUBMITTED BY: ALLIYA ZUBAIR M.S EDUCATION ROLL NO.07 DATE: 13.03.2012